Pocket Electronic Dictionaries for SecondLanguage Learning: Help or Hindrance?

Gloria M. Tang

This article reports on a study that addresses the concerns of ESL teachers abouttheir students' use of pocket bilingual electronic dictionaries (EDs). The purposeis to communicate to content and language teachers: (a) the features ofthe ED, (b)the uses secondary level ESL students make of the pocket ED as a tool for learningEnglish, (c) the effectiveness of the ED in helping ESL students' comprehensionand production of English, (d) students' perception of the usefulness of the ED,and (e) the strengths and weaknesses of the ED as perceived by ESL teachers. Thefindings indicate that not only do a large number of Chinese ESL students ownEDs, but they also make consistent use of them during reading comprehensionand writing classes. Examples are given of the students' successful and unsuc­cessful attempts using the ED, and recommendations are made for ESL teachersto teach dictionary skills.

IntroductionIn the last seven years, pocket bilingual electronic dictionaries (EDs) havebecome popular with English as a second language (ESL) students, especiallyAsian students, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Many ESL teachers view theuse of them with concern. Some are against it because they do not advocateESL students using their first language (Ll) in the classroom. Others areconcerned because they have no idea of what the students are doing withtheir EDs. A number of teachers have from time to time sought my advice onwhether the ED should be banned in the classroom. This article reports on astudy designed to address the concerns of ESL teachers about ESL students'use of the pocket ED.

More specifically, the following concerns are addressed: (a) the features ofthe EDs, (b) the uses the secondary level Chinese-speaking students whohave recently joined an English-speaking school system make of the ED as atool for learning English, (c) the effectiveness of the ED in helping com­prehension and production of English, (d) the students' perceptions of theusefulness of the ED, and (e) the strengths and weaknesses of the ED asperceived by the ESL teachers.

The ESL enrollment in Vancouver schools has increased so dramaticallyin the last decade that English has become the minority language (Rinehart,1996) in many school districts. In the Vancouver school district, the ESLenrollment in 1994-1995 is almost 51 % of the total student population (29,000

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out of 57,000); and the ESL enrollment in Richmond, which has grown by2,800%, is verging on 50% 00,000 out of 24,000). In many schools in Van­couver most of the ESL students are Chinese-speaking students from China,Hong Kong, or Taiwan. These students have recently arrived in Vancouvereither as immigrants or as international students. They are aware of their lowEnglish proficiency and feel considerable pressure to improve their Englishto access mainstream classes and credit courses and, eventually, universityeducation. As a result, these students, especially those at the secondary level,struggle in various ways to improve their academic English, which to mostof them is synonymous with acquiring as large a vocabulary as possible. Oneof the strategies they employ is avidly to look up the meaning of all vocabu­lary items they come across using bilingual EDs. The question arises, doesthe ED help the students acquire academic English proficiency? Is the ED ahelp or a hindrance?

With the exception of a study of the features of EDs published by theHong Kong Consumer Council (995), an article on postsecondary students'use of pocket EDs by Taylor and Chan (994), and a few studies on bilingualdictionaries conducted in Hong Kong (Chi, 1996; Taylor, 1996), there are fewstudies on the use of EDs. Moreover, I have not been able to locate empiricalstudies on the topic. Taylor and Chan (994) examined the use and useful­ness of pocket EDs from the point of view of postsecondary students and asmall number of teachers in Hong Kong. All the students who used EDsindicated that they used it "to find or check the meaning of English words"(p. 601). They conclude that

There is clearly considerable potential for pocket EDs because of theirease of use and range of features, including the availability of sound ...[although they] generally lack several of the ten features expected in dic­tionaries for learners as listed by Hartmann 0992, p. 153). (p. 601)

In his survey of a limited number of school teachers and universityinstructors on students' use of dictionaries in Hong Kong, Taylor (996)reports that about 20% of the secondary school teachers reported that someof their students used EDs, while 19 out of 26 instructors at a universityreported that undergraduate students used EDs.

Although few studies explicitly explore how Chinese students actuallyuse EDs or book dictionaries, some studies do shed light on the topic. Gu's(994) case study of vocabulary learning of good and poor Chinese EFLlearners is a case in point. Gu employed think-aloud techniques to discoverlearner thinking processes or patterns, for example, when they looked upunfamiliar words in dictionaries and when they took down notes. He foundthat good readers were more discriminating in their selection of words tolook up, and that good readers guessed the meaning from context beforedeciding whether to look up the word. Poor readers, on the other hand,

40 GLORIA M. TANG

looked up words immediately, and they looked up all unfamiliar words theycame across. However, the students Gu researched used book dictionariesand not EDs. I have not been able to locate any research literature on howESL students, specifically Chinese students, use the pocket ED in terms of thewords they look up, when they look them up, how they look them up, andwhat they look for. This study proposes to fill this gap.

MethodThe study was conducted in three secondary schools in Vancouver, involv­ing a total of 254 Chinese students and 10 teachers (see Table 1). In addition Iinterviewed 10 other ESL teachers about their perception of their ESL stu­dents using the ED. The research sites included two public schools and oneindependent school, which were chosen because of accessibility. Althoughthey were not randomly selected, the two public schools reflect the charac­teristics of the student population in many British Columbia schools. Bothhave a high ESL population and the majority of the ESL students are fromAsia. The independent school is an English language school that providesESL and transitional classes for recent immigrants and overseas studentswho, for various reasons, such as age or nonimmigrant status, are not ad­mitted into the public school system. The student enrollment in this school ismade up exclusively of Asian students from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China,Vietnam, and Korea.

The ParticipantsAlthough all the ESL students in the two public schools and all the studentsin two classes of the independent school were surveyed, this article reportson the data of the Chinese students only. The reasons are: (a) the majority ofthe ESL students surveyed were Chinese, and (b) the researcher can under­stand and analyze the language without a translator or interpreter. Of the 305ESL students surveyed, 254 (83%) were Chinese, speaking either Mandarinor Cantonese. The ages of the students in the public schools ranged from 13to 18, but a few of the students in the independent school were 19. Theirlength of residence in Canada was between one month and two years.

Data CollectionData collection began by administering a questionnaire to all the par­ticipants. The questionnaire sought information on whether they owned orused EDs; the brand, make, and cost of their EDs; and how often and forwhat purposes they used the ED. Other methods involved observing twogroups of students in the independent school and one group in one of thepublic schools in their ESL classrooms. The students in the independentschool were observed three days a week for three months. The students' useof the ED during listening, reading, and writing was recorded; and their

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Table 1Data Collection Methodology

No. of Questionnaire Observed Inter- Teachers SsStudents viewed questionnaire Notes

School A(Public) 146 146 5

SchoolS 20Ss(Public) 80 80 4hours

Schoole 28Ss(Independent) 28 28 3days/wk 28 5 28

3 mths

assignments, the handouts the teacher distributed, and their vocabularynotebooks were examined. They were also interviewed about their use of theED and their perception of its usefulness. In addition, the teachers whosestudents had been surveyed, along with 10 teachers from other schools not inthe study, were invited to complete a questionnaire. Data collection method­ology is summarized in Table 1.

ResultsI report the results under five headings: the features of the EDs; the uses (howand for what purpose) the secondary level Chinese-speaking ESL studentsmade of the ED; the effectiveness of the ED in helping ESL students' com­prehension and production of English as perceived by the researcher; thestudents' perception of the usefulness of the ED; and the strengths andweaknesses of the ED as perceived by ESL teachers.

The Features of the EDThe EDs investigated here are pocket-size, usually consisting of a translatoror bilingual dictionary, calculator, and diary/organizer. They are mostlymade in Hong Kong or Taiwan. During the time of the research, the priceranged from about $400 to over $1,000 Canadian, depending on the featuresor functions of the dictionary. These machines are gradually becoming moreaffordable and user-friendly and as a result more popular.

Instead of describing all the features of the most up-to-date EDs, I list thefeatures found in the EDs used by the students I observed (see Table 2). AsChinese is written in characters, different input methods are provided forstudents to access information in Chinese. Among the methods are radicalstroke and total stroke, both of which involve counting the number of strokesof a Chinese character; Cantonese romanization (phonetic symbols); Man-

42 GLORIA M. TANG

Categories

Table 2Features of Electronic Dictionaries Used by Students Observed

Description

English-Chinese dictionary

Chinese-English dictionary

Slang dictionary

English roots

Phonetic drill

Practical nound lists

Travel dialogue

Listening and learning

Sentence making

Explanation of use

Calculator

Diary/Notebook/Organizer

Games

1. Headword2. Phonetic script (two systems: DJ & KK)3. Parts of speech (abbreviations differ, for example, a1adj)4. Meaning/ senses in ChineseButtons =} grammar, example sentence, synonyms, antonyms, collocation

Different access methods, for example, Mandarin pinyin and zhuyin, CantonesePinyin, pen

Idiomaticexpressions

1. Male English names2. Female English names3. English prefixes4. English suffixes

1. Phonetic symbols2. Vowels3. Consonants4. Spelling drills5. Phonetic drills (filling in blanks)

Nouns classified by topic, for example, apparel, dining, home

Subtopics

1. Listening and learning2. English Chinese review (User-made list)3. Chinese English review4. Slang review5. Dialogue review (2-5 Space for entering personal word lists)

Seven levels of jumbled sentences with answers, Chinese translation, sound,and help

1. How to use pen in Chinese2. Explanation of keys in Chinese3. Pinyin cross-reference =pronunciation code4. Abbreviation of dictionary in Chinese5. Word sign of dictionary, e.g., n=noun6. Opinion area

darin pinyin (phonetic symbols); Mandarin zhuyin (phonetic symbols); andpen input (input by writing the Chinese character on the screen).

In the English-Chinese (E-C) dictionary, for example, the screen showsthe English head word, phonetic scripts of the word, the part(s) of speech of

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the word, and the Chinese translation. In most of the EDs, two phoneticscripts are included, representing both British and American pronunciations.In addition, the user can access other screens directly by clicking on one ofthe buttons at the bottom of the screen. Typically, Button 1 accesses thegrammar or part of speech of the word; for example, if the head word is averb, it shows the past tense form, the past participle, and the presentcontinuous form of the verb. Button 2 gives example sentences; Button 3synonyms; Button 4 antonyms; and Button 5 collocations. A feature of the EDthat does not exist in book dictionaries is sound. Learners can check thepronunciation of a word or phrase by pressing the voice button. However,the synthetic sound is not always clear, and the pronunciation is artificial.

As EDs are meant for learners, it is appropriate to evaluate them againstHartmann's (1992) criteria of a good learners' dictionary. Most of the modelsexhibit few of these criteria that are listed as follows:

1. the word-list is selected according to criteria of frequency andusefulness;

2. the definitions are geared to the more limited vocabulary of theforeign learner;

3. the different senses of the headword are clearly discriminated;4. collocational detail is provided, usually by example sentences;5. grammatical coding is detailed and explicit;6. phonetic transcription is international;7. stylistic information is given, typically by usage labels;8. textual transparency is considered desirable;9. historical-etymological information is (usually) avoided;10. cultural information is (occasionally) provided, for example, by

pictures. (p. 153)

It is true that in most EDs the definitions are geared to the more limitedvocabulary of the foreign learner, that international phonetic transcription isused, and that complicated historical-etymological information is avoided.However, the word lists in some EDs are confusing and complicated. Oftenthey consist of different lists, one for common use, one for secondary levelstudents, and one for TOEFL; and the words found on one list are notconsistently present in other lists. Besides, the word list is short and limited.Collocation is not detailed; example sentences are only included sometimes;and grammatical coding is broad. What causes much confusion is the factthat the different senses of a word are not listed according to meaning. Theyare classified according to parts of speech, and often a literal meaning isfollowed by an unrelated figurative meaning.

However, with all these negative characteristics, the ED has its usefulnessand has become important to many ESL students as the following findingsshow. Also, there are differences among the different brands. Some have a

44 GLORIA M. TANG

more comprehensive word list; some have more detailed grammatical codes,and some discriminate the different senses of a word more clearly thanothers. Another difference is that some are designed for Mandarin speakerswhereas others are designed for Cantonese speakers. A Cantonese speakermay find a Mandarin dictionary difficult to read. Further research to dis­cover the most appropriate brand of ED for specific groups is recommended.

Uses Secondary-Level Chinese-Speaking Students Made of the EDThe survey showed that 87% of the Chinese students owned EDs. Many ofthose who did not own one used a friend's from time to time. One studentpointed out that it was "the student's best friend." Another remarked that hefelt lost when his ED was down. Most of the students had used the ED forone to three years; they had started using one in their home country. A fewhad owned one for over five years, and a small number had used one for onlya few months since coming to Canada. Those who had used an ED for over ayear were comfortable with it and made use of many of its features. It isinteresting to note that none of them played the computer games included inthe ED, mainly because the games were not interesting. The survey, observa­tions, interviews, and documents all indicate that the students made use ofdifferent functions of the ED and that their main concern was to look up themeaning of vocabulary.

Finding 1: The students' main concern was looking up the the Chinesetranslation of English words.In response to the survey question of what they used the ED for, all thestudents said that they used it to look up the meaning of vocabulary, sup­porting the finding of Taylor and Chan's (994) survey of postsecondaryHong Kong students' use of the ED. In the survey, all the students indicatedthey used the ED to look up the meaning or definition of words. This wasconfirmed by classroom observations that showed that ESL students usedthe ED most frequently during reading comprehension and listening com­prehension. The function most frequently used was the E-C dictionary.When the teacher used a word they did not understand, they used the ED,and when the teacher wrote an unfamiliar word on the chalkboard or askedthe students the meaning of a word, they used the ED. During their dailyuninterrupted silent reading of storybooks and doing comprehension exer­cises, about 60% of them invariably used the ED. In other words, the ESLstudents used the ED for vocabulary learning. For them vocabulary learningwas synonymous with learning the language or attaining literacy. Theybelieved that "vocabulary learning is at the heart of mastering a foreignlanguage" (Rubin & Thompson, 1994, p. 79), and that "the vocabulary size ofa learner is highly predictive of his entire language ability" (Gu, 1994, p. 376).

For most of the students, vocabulary learning meant knowing the mean­ing or the Chinese translation of the word. For a few, vocabulary learning

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was learning the meaning as well as the pronunciation and spelling of theword. When the students were required to do a language task that involvedusing vocabulary in sentences, they looked up the sample sentences screen aswell. However, the teacher's handouts, for example, comprehension pas­sages, and the students' vocabulary notebooks showed that the students'most immediate concern was a translated meaning, that is, the Chineseequivalent, rather than sensemaking of the passage. For example, the com­prehension passages and work sheets were usually full of the Chineseequivalent of the vocabulary squeezed between lines and in margins. Oc­casionally, it was accompanied by phonetic scripts. Some of the studentskept a vocabulary notebook in which they entered and stored all unfamiliarwords they came across for later retrieval. The entries were not alphabetizedor categorized in any way. Table 3 shows typical vocabulary notebookentries.

Finding 2: Students looked up the grammar entry of the ED depended ontheir knowledge ofgrammatical terms.In the survey, about 50% of the students claimed they looked up the gram­mar of words. This was confirmed by the classroom observation. Again,about 50% of the students observed referred to the grammar entry when theywere trying to choose the right equivalent from the many meanings or sensesof a word. Whether they checked the grammar entry depended on, andreflected, their understanding of grammar and grammatical terms.

I found that all the older students (age 16-19) were aware of the part-of­speech entry in the ED. Younger students who joined the English-speakingeducation system at grade 8 were not aware of it nor did they understand themeaning of the abbreviations indicating parts of speech. The older students,especially those from Taiwan, understood the abbreviations, meanings, and

Table 3Examples of Vocabulary Notebook Entry

Headword

psychologist

assumed

Phonetic scripts

/saikaladzist/

/asjumd/

Chinese equivalent

Head word Part of speech

psychologist n.

46

Phonetic scripts

/saikaladzist/

Chineseequivalent

GLORIA M. TANG

functions of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs, but only a few (20%)understood the symbols vi (verb intransitive) and vt (verb transitive). A fewof the students knew the definitions of the different parts of speech but didnot know how to use those definitions in selecting vocabulary items correct­ly. The Hong Kong students' knowledge of grammar varied from student tostudent; some did not seem to be familiar with the parts of speech at all. Thefollowing are some of their interview responses:

Ang1: Never learned grammar in Hong Kong. Therefore, I'm not sure

what adj and v mean.An An: Learned in Hong Kong but only simple ones. Maybe nand a-d-j.Kary, Tony: Never been taught before.

Finding 3: The students used different ways to learn the pronunciation ofaword.Both surveys and interview results showed that about 85% of the studentsused the ED to check pronunciation. Some read and wrote down thephonetic transcription; others used the sound feature as well. Many of theolder students from Taiwan had learned phonetics before coming to Canada.Whenever these students looked up the meaning of a word, they copied thephonetic transcriptions into their vocabulary books and sometimes on hand­outs. However, they seldom tried to read it to themselves. When asked toread it, only about 10% of the students read the transcriptions accurately.

From time to time the teacher's explanation, instruction, or questioningwas interrupted by indistinct robotic-like sounds from different corners ofthe room when students needed to answer the teacher's "What's the mean­ing of ...?" questions.

As for pronunciation, even after listening to the ED's pronunciation, thestudents responded by spelling out the word they could not pronounce.Most indicated that they did make use of the sound feature to check or findout the pronunciation of words. However, they could not always imitate thesound. In some EDs it is possible to change the speed of the sound. One of thestudents used this feature to slow down the pronunciation of the wordbefore imitating the slightly distorted (too deliberate) pronunciation. It wasonly after he had slowed down the speed that he could hear clearly andimitate the pronunciation. A few used the ED to check the stress or intona­tion of the word.

Finding 4: The students used various strategies for meaning-making.As mentioned, students used the E-C dictionary most frequently but theyalso used the C-E dictionary. The older students who were all highly profi­cient in their L1 found the Chinese definitions in the ED easy to understand.Only occasionally did they misinterpret the positive or negative connotationof the word. What posed a problem for most (70%) was the multiple mean­ings or senses of the vocabulary; they found it hard to decide on the most

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appropriate one. Interviews showed that the students had different ways ofdealing with the problem. Some of the strategies they used follow.

Guessing from ContextUsing the E-C dictionary to look up English words they did not understand,about 70% of the students read the various meanings, looked at the context,and guessed, for example,

Suki: See the story. Know what it's about. Look at meaning and decide.Kong: To choose. Look at sentence and compare sentence with meaning.Sali: Because the same word has many meanings so I read the sentence

again and guess the meaning.Johnson: Look at paragraph. Look at meaning. Look at paragraph again.

Checking Parts of SpeechThe students who were familiar with grammar checked the part of speech ofthe word and its meaning to decide on the choice, for example, appropriate(v) or appropriate (n). Adan, who learned grammar in Taiwan, claimed,

See if it's a-d-j or n or v and make a choice.Charles: Look at sentence. See if it's v or n or adj.

Back TranslationDuring writing classes, the students often used back translation when theylooked up words from Chinese to English and found multiple meanings orsenses. They looked up each of the definitions for the Chinese meaning againin order to decide on the most appropriate. They also found that this round­about way was time-consuming.

A Combination of StrategiesApproximately 40% of the students indicated they used a combination ofstrategies. Charlie summarized his strategies as follows:

Charlie: Not sure which one is the definition. Highlight each definition andpress key and check all definitions in ED. Sometimes guess bylooking at grammar, v or n or adj.

Thus, for at least 40% of the students, looking up vocabulary in thedictionary was a problem-solving exercise. It involved guessing. It also in­volved interaction with the text in front of them. In other words, they werelooking for contextual clues as best they could. Figure 1 is a diagrammaticrepresentation of the meaning-making process of one of the students. Thestudent interacted with the text and made attempts to look for contextualclues in order to guess the meaning. Of course, there were others who lookedup the word, copied one or all of the meanings, and forgot about it. Figure 2gives an example of such a learner.

Figure 3 summarizes the meaning making processes of a number ofstudents. None used all the strategies in the diagram, but they used a com-

48 GLORIA M. TANG

Go onro.dingGo on reading

c;mili.rw;>~ T T,~amiharwoV ~

tE E

~

~ a---+ x

t xf

ISoioci moaning I~'f

T Copy meaningICOpy mo.mniJ T

Figure 1. Flowchart of Student A's Figure 2. Flowchart of Student B'suse of the ED. use of the ED.

bination of some. The attempts were sometimes successful and sometimesunsuccessful.

The Effectiveness of the ED in Helping Students in theComprehension and Production of EnglishFinding Five: Successful use of the ED was related to the ESL students' L1proficiency as well as their knowledge of English grammar.One factor that contributed to successful use of the ED was the students'Chinese proficiency. On the whole, the older students who had a longerhistory of schooling in their country of origin were more comfortable andmore successful using the ED. A few younger girls at the grade 8 level wereless successful. In the first place, they had no dictionary skills. Then they haddifficulty understanding the translation, that is, Chinese characters, evenwhen they had found the translation of the English word.

With the older students who were proficient in their LI, I encounteredmany successful instances of using both the E-C dictionary and the C-Edictionary. During uninterrupted silent reading and reading comprehension,the students were able to guess the meaning of a large percentage of thedifficult vocabulary with the help of the ED. During in-class writing thestudents were able to look up and find the English words they wanted. Table4 shows some of the successful uses of the ED.

Another factor that contributed to the success of the translation is thestudents' knowledge of grammar and their readiness to guess from contex­tual clues. For example, Adan encountered the word appropriate. He had no

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Go on reading

Unfamiliar word ']['

E

x

T

Figure 3. Diagrammatic summary of the meaning-making process ofat least 50%of the ESL students using the ED.

idea what it meant. He looked it up and found two meanings on the screen.As a verb it means • ~a~

~r:li 1:!:(invade and occupy; seize); as an adjective, it means ;l!!!l. ......

(suitable). Adan looked from the text to the dictionary for a long time. Hereferred to the context, looked at the part of speech, saw that the second onewas an adjective, and made the right choice.

However, I also detected many unsuccessful attempts, although not asnumerous as successful attempts.

Finding 6: Unsuccessful use of the ED can be related to the quality of theED, the intranslatability between two languages, and/or of the students'dictionary skills.The following are some examples of students' unsuccessful lookups.

50 GLORIA M. TANG

Table 4Examples of Students' Successful Attempts Translating C-E

Examples taken from students' written assignments

Accordingto the teacher's word, this is correct.

I can analyze the situation.

Read the laws and regulations of the classroom.

He pretended he is policeman.

Slang and Idiomatic ExpressionsThe students could seldom find the meaning of idiomatic expressions. Anexample is the looking up of "Sure. Sounds like a good idea!" Congo andCharles looked up "sounds," found four Chinese meanings

n J!tf ; OJ~fellJ ;~ ; EP~translations of which are n noise; area within hearing; inlet; impression. Theywent back to the sentence; looked at the Chinese definitions again, and gaveup. They then looked up idea and found six options to choose from, none ofwhich helped them in deciphering the meaning of the expression. Congotried to translate each word and came up with Sounds (subject) love (verb) agood thought. Paul looked up sure and found four adjectives and four adverbs,but the translations did not seem to be of much help.

This is in part because few students were aware of the existence of a slang(idioms) dictionary. In the slang dictionary I found Sounds great, which mighthave helped the student comprehend the meaning of Sounds like agood idea!

Multiple Meanings/SensesAnother problem arose as a result of the nature of the English and Chineselanguages. An English word may have several Chinese equivalents and aChinese word may have a number of different English equivalents. Thestudents found it difficult to pick the right definition. Often they made thewrong choice as the following shows.

Johnson wanted to make a funny sentence. So he looked up in theChinese-English dictionary for the English translation of the word ~ 1W .He saw three options: 1 rob 2 loot 3 plunder. He chose 2, back translated,and made a sentence, Did you loot the bank?

I asked: Why did you choose 2 and not 1 or 3?

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Johnson: I find Chinese meaning of loot in dictionary. (Showed screen)I see vt. Know it is a verb.

Another unsuccessful attempt of looking up a word in the C-E dictionaryoccurred in a prepared oral presentation by individual students. Each stu­dent had to prepare a three-minute speech on a risk taker. Charles chose aChinese film actor, Jacky Chan. He wanted to say that Jacky Chan neverneeded a stand-in when shooting a film no matter how dangerous the stuntwas. He knew the Chinese term for stand-in t{f~,

looked it up in the C-E dictionary, and found: 1 a substitute 2 a stand-in 3 ascapegoat. He chose scapegoat for his sentence, "He never needs a scapegoat,"which did not communicate what he wanted to say.

Whether or not the attempt was successful, I feel that for the students,looking up Chinese words in the ED, mainly during writing lessons, was aproblem-solving activity. It was not successful because there did not seem tobe adequate contextualization for the student to choose the right term, unlikethe instances when they were looking up English words and had the text torefer to. There were example sentences, but those did not seem to help.

Limited Entry/Meaning in the EDSome lookups were unsuccessful because of the limited number of entries inthe EDs. There were several instances when the students failed to find thecorrect meaning of the word simply because the word did not exist in thatED, for example, the meaning of lunar as in lunar calendar could not befound; the meaning of dumpling as in a specialty food for the Dragon Boatfestival was not listed. Other words or expressions that the students couldnot find in their EDs include (1) involved in ''became involved in the problemsof the country" and committed in "to have someone committed."

Derivatives and Compound WordsThere was also indication that the students could not find certain wordsbecause they did not know where to look when the words did not appear ashead words.

However, with all these unsuccessful attempts, the students liked the EDand were aware only of the advantages of the ED.

Students' Perceptions of the Usefulness of the EDFinding 8: The advantages of the ED as perceived by the students wereportability, speed, range of features, and the availability of sound.Chinese students, especially recently arrived international students and im­migrants, relied on the ED and were aware only of the advantages of the ED.The following are some of the students' perceptions of the advantages of themachine:

52 GLORIA M. TANG

Brownand Chuck:

Moncton,Alison,Irene:

The first reason is fast. ED is easy to find words. Another reason isit has lots of functions. We can find Chinese-English dictionary,English-Chinese dictionary, memory and games. Besides, we canfind idioms.

We can find the words so fast. Secondly we can know how to usethe correct words. Also, we can follow the dictionaries to read thewords.

PoPo,Alan:

Susie,Tony:

Andrew,Earl:

It has pronunciation and help students how to read the words. It isvery fast and easy to change C-E and E-C.

It is very convenient. It's not only faster than using normaldictionary but also easy to bring along, because it's not weighty.

It is easy to understand the meaning. It does not waste time. Wecan know the pronunciation. We also can know the synonym andantonym at the same time.

Johnny, Looking for the own language ofa word's meaning is easier toKong: understand than a dictionary which is English to English

To sum up, the advantages of the ED as perceived by the students includeportability, speed, availability of sound, and explanation in their own lan­guage. These advantages related by the students, incidentally, are similar tothe teachers' perception of the strengths of the ED.

The Strengths and Weaknesses of the ED as Perceivedby ESL TeachersTen ESL teachers responded to four open-ended questions about their per­ception of the usefulness and disadvantages of allowing students to use theED in class. In addition, 10 other teachers expressed their views orally. Theirresponses are summarized in Tables 5 and 6. As the percentage followingeach category shows, some of the categories reflect the suggestions of a smallminority of teachers whereas others reflect the views of all the teachers whoresponded.

Finding 9. The advantages of the ED as perceived by ESL teachers coincidedwith the advantages as perceived by students (Table 5).The greatest advantage of the ED, according to the teachers, is the confidenceit gives to the ESL students who own one. Some find it useful as an additionalresource, not the only one, however, especially in content classes. One teach­er finds the practical noun lists grouped according to topic a useful databasefor her students. On the whole, the teachers do not object to recently arrivedstudents using an ED, particularly in multilevel classes where the studentsmight be more likely to be engaged in individualized learning. However, theobjections they raise appear to outweigh the advantages.

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Table 5The Strengths of the ED as Perceived by ESL Teachers

Why

Speed 20%)

Quick reference (40%)

Confidence 20%)

Content learning (20%)

What/How

Vocabulary (40%)

a. Buildingb. Retrieval

1. Spelling2. Pronunciation3. Thesaurus4. Grammar

As an additional resource (50%)

Word lists groupedaccording to topic (10%)

Who

Beginners especially (40%)

Students in multilevel class (40%)

Finding 10. The teachers had a range of concerns about students' use of theED (Table 6).The negative perceptions of the ESL teachers can be divided into social andacademic categories (Table 6). The teachers believe that the ED encouragesantisocial behaviors in students because they interact with the machinerather than with other students. Besides, if the students overrely on themachine, they may be unwilling to take risks in class. Moreover, the EDdistracts the whole class when the students pass their machines around,when they play garnes, and when they do not listen to the teacher. Academi­cally, the teachers are concerned about the quality of the ED, for example,incomplete entry, incorrect entry, and artificial pronunciation. Many of theteachers feel that if they allow the students to use the ED, they are notencouraging them to learn through text and that they are not providing forthe students to move away from word level to sentence level and discourselevel. Nor are they encouraging them to make the leap from translating toguessing and predicting. An ESL teacher voiced her concern: "Overt use oftranslation might considerably slow down the students' L2 development andimpact upon their ultimate level of English proficiency."

Another ESL teacher maintained that unless ESL students made the leapfrom reliance on translation to guessing and making predictions usingEnglish, they were unlikely to make much progress in their English profi­ciency. Some teachers, prompted by their intuition that bilingual EDs are oflittle or no value, advocated banning the use of the ED in their classes.

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Table 6ESL Teachers' Concerns about Students' Use of the ED

Student

Social

Class

Academic

Dictionaryquality Learningprocessword-by-word translation

1. Antisocial (10%)

2. Overreliance onmachine-notwilling to take risks(60%)

3. Status symbol(5%)

4. Expensive: maylead to theft; needshandling with care(5%)

Distracting to class:

1. Play games (20%)

2. Pass Ed around(10%)

3. Don't listen toteacher (10%)

1. Incomplete entry 10%

2. Incorrect entry (20%)

3. Artificial pronounciation(60%)

1. Odd usage-unidiomatic (80%)

2. Not encouraging students to learnthrough context (100%)

No provision made for students tomove away from word level tosentence level to discourse level; orto make the leap from translating toguessing and prediction

ConclusionHaving reported on the answers to the questions this research set out toinvestigate, the question remains: Is use of the ED by ESL students to bediscouraged?

The answer is yes and no. Yes, it is to be discouraged if the students areyoung and if their Chinese vocabulary is limited. It is to be discouraged ifstudents look up all unfamiliar words indiscriminately, a characteristic of apoor ESL learner (Gu, 1994). It is also to be discouraged if the students makeglossaries into laundry lists, isolating words from context, and disregardingany contextual clues-another characteristic of a poor ESL learner.

On the other hand, just as book dictionary use is a valid activity for ESLstudents (Summers, 1988), so is the use of the ED. ESL students need help intheir search for meaning. The ED is often the most readily accessible help; forexample, before students have acquired other learning strategies, such asmaking guesses about new words, or before they have acquired the languageproficiency to ask the teacher for clarification and explanation. Moreover, thelearning strategy with which they are all familiar, that is, asking help fromneighbors, quite often proves fruitless. The ED is certainly not the only or thebest strategy for helping learners in the comprehension and production ofEnglish, but it definitely is one of the more potent strategies, especially forESL students with a good background knowledge of their Ll. It can helpsecondary-level students bridge the gap between their prior knowledge and

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new knowledge if they know how to use the ED. Moreover, using the ED isa reality in ESL classrooms that will not easily go away.

I share many of the ESL teachers' concerns about their students' use of theED. However, I believe that most of these concerns can be overcome throughteaching and research. For example, if the teacher is concerned about thequality of some of the EDs, he or she can research with the students todiscover more about the different brands and to choose the most suitable onefor his or her students. Or if the categorization of the words in the ED intodifferent lists, for example, common use, secondary, and TOEFL, makes thelookup process complicated, the teacher could direct the students' attentionto the categories and the bases of these classifications. Even if the entries arenot comprehensive enough, the ED can serve a bridging purpose. In readingcomprehension, for example, ESL students are often confronted with wordsthey need to clarify before they can continue with the text. The ED is a fastand effective means of clarification.

Because ESL students often work on an individual word basis, expectinga one-to-one correlation between Chinese and English, odd uses often result.The teacher can offset these misconceptions by pointing out collocations,contexts, and grammatical possibilities of the word.

Another objection voiced by the ESL teachers is that the ED does notencourage students to learn by using contextual clues. I find that looking upa word with the ED is a problem-solving exercise for some students. Thestudents I observed did in fact engage in linguistic processing of the word(Summers, 1988). They did interact with the text and look for contextualclues as best they could. Only they needed the ED, or any bilingual diction­ary, to make that necessary link before they could do the linguistic process­ing and the guessing. Maybe it was the ED or other bilingual dictionary thatforced the students back to the text. Those students who look up all wordsindiscriminately without engaging in linguistic processing need to bedirected in using the ED optimally.

In short, my suggestions to ESL teachers who are concerned about theirstudents using the ED include (a) teaching dictionary skills, and (b) conduct­ing research collaboratively with ESL students to find out more about theED's features and possibilities. It is true that the students all assured me thatthe ED was easy to use, for example, that they looked at the manual or playedwith it and soon mastered it. However, what they lacked were dictionaryskills, with both book dictionaries and EDs. They need to learn about:1. the base forms of the verb;2. the different functions of the ED and how they are useful;3. parts of speech and what the abbreviations, such as a., vi., n., etc.,

indicate;4. the appropriate explanation to choose when there are multiple

meanings and senses;

56 GLORIA M. TANG

5. where to look up derivatives, for example, violinist;6. where to look up compound words, for example, desktop computer;

and7. how to use the slang (idioms) dictionary.

A second suggestion is to conduct research on the use of the ED and to doit with the help of the ESL students. By so doing the teacher can begin tobecome less suspicious of the ED and what the students are doing when theyare using it. Also, in this way the teacher can overcome the disadvantages ofthe ED. Two areas that can be researched are the brand of EDs most appro­priate for certain groups of students and whether explicit teaching of EDskills enhances ESL student learning of English using the ED.

Finally, I wish to stress that using the ED is not the be-all and end-all oflearning an additional language. Indeed, it is one of many strategies. Whileteaching dictionary skills to maximize the benefits of using the ED, theteacher has to devise tasks to move students away from translating to guess­ing from context, in order to enable them to see that they can still understanda text passage without looking up the meanings of all the unfamiliar vocabu­laryitems.

Note1Names have been changed.

The AuthorGloria Tang is an assistant professor in the Department of Language Education at the Universityof British Columbia, having previously been an ESL teacher and teacher educator in Hong Kongfor over 20 years. Her research interests include using bilingual dictionaries, computer graphics,and graphic organizers to enhance aquisition of written and spoken English.

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